North Carolina Teabaggers resegregate schools

[Smash255]

And there is nothing racial about the tea partiers.  sure......

[Smash255]

Oh my, those horrible teabaggers, putting up signs that say "whites only" everywhere...

Oh?  They aren't?  Never mind that, then.

Ahh yes this has absolutely nothing to do with race on the part of the tea baggers.....

[Smash255]

Am I missing something, I don't see the part where it says that back children are not allowed in the same schools? I disagree with them, but there is no racism here, moron.

The result will wind up being having many school that are mostly or all white and many schools that are mostly or all black.

[Smash255]

Am I missing something, I don't see the part where it says that back children are not allowed in the same schools? I disagree with them, but there is no racism here, moron.

Segregation does not need to be statutory to count as actual segregation.

if people in one area happen to be mostly white, and the school reflects that that isn't segregation, that is just reflective of the areas demographic makeup. the high school I went to was roughly 25%-30%, the same as the community we live in, but no one is crying segregation just because we don't bus in a but load of extra students from downtown Houston which would make our school more diverse.

Its one thing if it just happened to be the way things were, I think its a bit different when changes are made to something that has been around for awhile.

One thing to look at is how they draw up the lines.  If you have lets say a poor mostly minority neighborhood next to a fairly affluent white neighborhood, would the school boundries cut a bit into both neighborhoods, or will the border of the school lines be the exact same as the neighborhood lines.  

[Smash255]

Its one thing if it just happened to be the way things were, I think its a bit different when changes are made to something that has been around for awhile.

One thing to look at is how they draw up the lines.  If you have lets say a poor mostly minority neighborhood next to a fairly affluent white neighborhood, would the school boundries cut a bit into both neighborhoods, or will the border of the school lines be the exact same as the neighborhood lines.  

Well its one thing if it were both in the same town, but this sounds like a case where its people from the city and a different suburb. I disagree with the school board here, but you can not tie this to racism, or wanting to segregate. that would be if they were telling people in their own community if they could go to the school or not.

I don't think the race factor can be denied here.  Those who are in favor of this saying things like its not Selma 1960 anymore, while that is true its not it does show that race was a factor.

As far as city and suburb we will see when the lines are drawn.  In some cases you do have affluent white areas very close to poor minority areas.  If a line gets drawn right along racial or socio-economic lines its a major major problem, and will truly show the root of what they are trying to do here.

[Smash255]

Okay, what about the 99% white counties in Western NC and Eastern TN? Are we going to bus people all the way to Memphis from Knoxville? Is that what British law would require?

Don't be silly now. Of course it wouldn't (and, indeed, doesn't).

Then how does diversity get achieved in those areas, since you guys are arguing that the lack of such a plan amounts to unintentional discrimination at the very least?

You don't have to have diverse schools everywhere, just roughly equal education opportunities. If educational opportunities were actually equal in the new system, it wouldn't be discriminatory.

Agreed.   I think in this case looking how the lines are drawn are important.  If a school isn't diverse because there is little or no diversity anywhere close, its one thing.  If a school winds up not being diverse because you have an affluent white area bordering a poor minority area and the lines are specifically drawn along those racial and socio-economic lines it is a major problem.

Aside from the reason why the school is or isn't drawn to be diverse, one thing that is very important is keeping the integrity that education opportunities are similar regardless of racial or socio-economic background.  This is one area in which Wake County has done better than many areas of the country (north and south)  What they are doing here makes that very important thing of providing equal opportunity much more difficult. 

It will be interesting to see if they do anything to keep that basic integrity of equal opportunity in place, or if we will simply wind up with a bunch of affluent schools verses a bunch of poor schools, and a vast difference in resources and opportunities.  Something in which we have way too much of in this country.

[Smash255]

That's not what I'm saying at all. The article doesn't mention sub-standard schools, the concern is about clustering low income students together, which can lead to education standards falling. Obviously, there is some risk of this, otherwise there wouldn't be opposition.

Why would educational standards fall?

Because poor neighborhoods tend to get less educational funding than middle to upper class ones.

Why would the school district spend less in some of its schools than others?


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Poorer areas will need more actual funding to make educational funding equal due to things like meal needs and stuff of that nature that are needed in some areas and not in others.

[Smash255]

Poor schools frequently get more funding, not less. Title I and all.  If it stays in the same district, that shouldn't matter. Meals are totally federal and not a local concern.

They sometimes get more aid, but not more funding.  When you look at per pupil spending and things like that, that generally takes into consideration all funding including meals and such.

[Smash255]

Poor schools frequently get more funding, not less. Title I and all.  If it stays in the same district, that shouldn't matter. Meals are totally federal and not a local concern.

They sometimes get more aid, but not more funding.  When you look at per pupil spending and things like that, that generally takes into consideration all funding including meals and such.

You're still not making any sense.   Imagine you are in charge of a school district and you have $11,000,000 to spend.  You have 2000 students, so average available funds are $5,500 per student.  It so happens you have two school buildings each with a capacity of 1000.  One is situated in a lower income area, the other in a higher income one.

Why wouldn't YOU simply direct more of the funding to the lower income school, perhaps $6,000,000 vs. $5,000,000?

Instead YOU would spend $400,000 on busing 500 students in opposite directions, and reduce spending to $5,300.000 at each school.  What makes you think the lesser spending will be equitably directed to low income students?

Because if you have a bunch of low income students clustered together its going to take even more $$ to educate them than whatever difference you would save in the busing.   Unless you gut the funding quite a bit more of the wealthier school (which the tea partiers would never go for) to send to the poorer school, you are still going to have more inequality. 


Now say a district provides services to poor and disadvantaged students to six schools, and the poor and disadvantaged make up approx 20% of each school.   That then changes and you have the same six schools, but the poor and disadvantaged mostly concentrated in two schools, with very few poor or disadvantaged students in the other four.   Even though the amount of poor and disadvantaged students overall did not changed much, the services that are needed to provide for them would likely increase because the need and problems escalate when you have the poor and disadvantaged clustered together.

[Smash255]

Because if you have a bunch of low income students clustered together its going to take even more $$ to educate them than whatever difference you would save in the busing.   Unless you gut the funding quite a bit more of the wealthier school (which the tea partiers would never go for) to send to the poorer school, you are still going to have more inequality. 

Can you provide a formula that illustrates the cost of education as a function of the percentage of low-income students in a school, over the range of 0% to 100%.  It doesn't have to be an exact formula, but is rather to be indicative of form of the cost structure.

I have suggested a formula of the form:

    $$(poor) = $X + $Y * poor

Where poor is share of student population that is low income in the range of 0 to 1.

Now say a district provides services to poor and disadvantaged students to six schools, and the poor and disadvantaged make up approx 20% of each school.   That then changes and you have the same six schools, but the poor and disadvantaged mostly concentrated in two schools, with very few poor or disadvantaged students in the other four.   Even though the amount of poor and disadvantaged students overall did not changed much, the services that are needed to provide for them would likely increase because the need and problems escalate when you have the poor and disadvantaged clustered together.

Why does the need escalate?  What sort of problems escalate?

There really is no set formula or anything you can estimate to a $$ amount, however it does take more funds to educate someone who is poor than someone is wealthy.  Its even more so when the poor is clustered together than when they are spread out because the simple day to day issues of not having much simply have more impact when its clustered together.

[Smash255]

There really is no set formula or anything you can estimate to a $$ amount, however it does take more funds to educate someone who is poor than someone is wealthy.  Its even more so when the poor is clustered together than when they are spread out because the simple day to day issues of not having much simply have more impact when its clustered together.

What are these "clustering" issues?

With a small number of low-income students, it would be easy to ignore those who don't show up for class, and it would be easier to transfer funds intended for the low-income students to more expensive programs that benefit high-income students.

Quite simply the educational opportunities simply aren't the same for a students in poverty as they are for students who are affluent.  More needs to be done to equalize the opportunities, and this does the exact opposite.

[Smash255]

There really is no set formula or anything you can estimate to a $$ amount, however it does take more funds to educate someone who is poor than someone is wealthy.  Its even more so when the poor is clustered together than when they are spread out because the simple day to day issues of not having much simply have more impact when its clustered together.

What are these "clustering" issues?

With a small number of low-income students, it would be easy to ignore those who don't show up for class, and it would be easier to transfer funds intended for the low-income students to more expensive programs that benefit high-income students.

Quite simply the educational opportunities simply aren't the same for a students in poverty as they are for students who are affluent.  More needs to be done to equalize the opportunities, and this does the exact opposite.

It is not clear what "this" refers to in the preceding paragraph.  Are you saying that if a school has a students of mixed incomes, and takes the extra funding intended for poor students, and shifts it into more expensive programs that tend to benefit high performing students who are disproportionately higher income, or just shifts the money into general overhead, that it will have the opposite effect?

The this is the decision by the school board whose result will wind up with more segregated schools, and schools with high poverty rates.

[Smash255]

But imagine you were one of the enlightened individuals who used to control the school board.  Why wouldn't you appropriate the funding to the schools?

Let's imagine there were two neighborhoods each with 1000 children and a school with capacity of 1000.  Neighborhood A is higher income than Neighborhood B.

Why wouldn't you as an enlightened school board member send $5 million to School A and $6 million to School B?

Instead you are going to spend several $400,000 on busing 500 children from Neighborhood A to School B, and 500 on busing 500 children from Neighborhood B to School A, and $5.3 million to each school.

What makes you think that both schools won't spend equal amounts on each student, if not more on the higher income students?

You are assuming that the process is always fair, school funding can be very political. In addition to that, school boards don't see lower income neighborhood schools as having that much potential. The question is if this school board will actually take steps towards equalizing funding, rather than just allowing the system to turn into a typical rich school/poor school scenario.

I'm assuming that the previous school board perceived themselves as being fair, and that you assumed that they were fair.  If that were true, why wouldn't they spend more where the need was greatest, and not spent it on school buses.

The school buses really isn't part of the equation, its a cop out argument by the current board.

[Smash255]

The this is the decision by the school board whose result will wind up with more segregated schools, and schools with high poverty rates.

Were you familiar with the policy of the Wake County school district under the old board?

It sounds more like a rationalization on your part.   You imagine who the new board is, and what there motivation might be, and thus have to presume that the old policy had a rational basis.

Yes, students were bussed around so you could have a strong diverse set of schools both demographically and socio-economically.   As a result unlike many large metropolitan areas, Wale had very few low performing schools, poor students had a better chance at getting a solid education because they were not stuck in the under performing poor schools.  That is going to change with the new policy.

[Smash255]

The school buses really isn't part of the equation, its a cop out argument by the current board.

What evidence is there that it is a cop out argument by the current board?

The cost of the busing was only a small % of the actual budget.  Putting that $$ back into the schools won't make a dent, and the $$$ that will be needed for the schools will now be greater since you will have the poor students clustered together.